Talk about making a memorable first impression.
Kelowna Rockets rookie forward Dillon Dube hit the ice in his inaugural season with the Western Hockey League club, found a spot in the top-six forward group and was right at home. Photographs of the Cochranite and his jubilant teammates gripping this year’s Ed Chynoweth Cup proof the 16-year-old Cochrane Minor Hockey product arrived in the Okanagan-region city last fall and fit right in.
“Dillon started the season, he was hurt for a lot of the first half of it,” says Rockets head coach Dan Lambert of the Cochranite with the sublime skillset. “But, certainly, once he got healthy and feeling good about his game, he’s been, I don’t want to say a surprise because we always knew how good of a player he was.
“But he’s really added a lot to our second line, our secondary scoring has been great because of him and his two linemates that have great chemistry and have done a great job for us.”
Skating with centre Gage Quinney and right-wing Tyson Baillie, Cochrane’s 5-foot-10, 175-pound left-wing found his stride and was an integral part of Kelowna’s 53-win regular season and its winning this year’s WHL championship, sweeping Brandon Wheat Kings 4-0 in the league-final series ended May 13. Dube finished the regular season with 17 goals and 10 assists in 45 regular-season games and contributed five goals and six assists in 18 playoff games.
“It’s crazy. It still hasn’t sunk in, to be honest,” Dube says of helping Kelowna win the WHL championship in his rookie season. It was Kelowna’s fourth WHL title, the last one coming in 2009. “It feels like we’re just waiting to play another team. It’s weird. We’re all just talking about it right now.”
Appropriately, Kelowna does play another team; three, actually. With the Western League title in hand, Rockets punched their ticket to the Memorial Cup, Canada’s major-junior hockey championship scheduled May 21-31 in Quebec City. Host team Quebec Remparts receive an automatic berth to the four-team tourney. Rimouski Oceanic are in for winning this year’s Quebec Major Junior Hockey League championship and Oshawa Generals earned Ontario’s berth for winning the Ontario Hockey League.
“Our team had success playing the way we did in these (WHL) playoffs,” Lambert states. “We certainly hope Dillon brings exactly what he brought throughout the playoffs. He’s going to be a power-play guy for us, more on probably the second power-play unit. He’s going to be a guy who’s going to be expected to not only create offensively but also not be a liability defensively. That’s the two areas of his game that have gotten much better.”
For Dube and Co., there’s little time to celebrate their league win with the national championship on tap. The time for celebrating is over. They have to hit the reset button and prepare for the toughest hockey of the season.
“Obviously, everybody is so happy that we won,” Dube says. “The Memorial Cup is toughest thing to win because you’re happy because you won the league, but you have to focus because our real goal is to win the Memorial Cup. We have to be focussed on that. You have to be mentally tough.
“You have to go back to ground zero. It’s going to be tough, but it’ll sure be fun.”
